Arunachal Pradesh’s Disaster Management Department on Wednesday declared that the central parts of the state were safe even as the water level in Tibet’s Yarlung Tsangpo river had gone up while flowing downstream, The Hindu reported.
The Yarlung Tsangpo is the upper stream of the Brahmaputra river. It is known as the Siang once it enters Arunachal Pradesh and the Brahmaputra when it enters Assam.
The Central Water Commission on Tuesday tweeted that it had received information from Chinese officials that a landslide had blocked the water’s flow, forming an artificial lake. At 8 pm on Wednesday, the commission said the river reached its peak after breaching the “landslide dam”.
Earlier this month, the state government issued a flash flood warning after Chinese authorities shared information about a similar landslide-triggered situation. “This time the landslide occurred at the same place and has again led to creation of an artificial lake, which has now started breaching,” an unidentified official from the water resources ministry told PTI. “However, the situation is not grave as it was a fortnight ago.”
In August, 19 residents of an island in East Siang district and 200 people in neighbouring Assam’s Dhemaji district were airlifted after the Siang river flooded because of heavy rainfall in the Chinese areas.
In May, China resumed sharing water flow data of the Brahmaputra with India. The river flows through China, India and Bangladesh before draining into the Bay of Bengal. The data is crucial for predicting floods in Northeast India. Beijing had stopped sharing information following a 74-day military standoff at Doklam – which lies near the tri junction between Tibet’s Chumbi Valley, Bhutan’s Ha Valley and Sikkim – in 2017.
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